Copy and paste this worksheet as a separate page linked to the Homepage of your portfolio. DO NOT type your answers on THIS document because it needs to be used by other students. The title of your page which replies to these questions is linked to your portfolio and should begin with the first initials of your first and last name. (In my case, the link to this worksheet from my portfolio page would read frzootsuit.)
You may earn a maximum of 3 points toward your final grade by doing the above and answering the questions and submitting them ontime (no later than Friday, October 13). Any worksheets submitted after the deadline will get a 0. You will be rewarded a maximum of 3 points if I judge your work to be above average. You will receive 2 points if your work is average, that is it may have a few minor mistakes in some of the answers but demonstrates correct grammar and indicates that some, but not all, of the answers, are acceptable and well expressed. You will earn only 1 point if you simply answered the questions and/or if you use poor grammar and if there are signs that you have not read the material on which your answers are based.
1. In the space below, describe the stasis at the beginning of Zoot Suit. In other words, “Where are we?” “When is it (time, day, and year)?” “Who are the people involved?” “What is the dramatic situation in which the characters find themselves as the play unfolds?”
Zoot Suit takes place in Los Angeles. The action takes place all throughout Los Angeles and the barrio or neighborhood of many of the Latinx community members living in Los Angeles during the middle part of the 20th century. The play takes place during World War II and the action begins on June 3, 1943, at the height of the zoot suit era, where Mexican American men would wear elongated suits as a part of the Pachuco culture of the time. The play begins at a dance that is shortly raided by police resulting in the arrest of the play's main character, Henry Reyna, and his gang, the 38th St. Gang. The play revolves around the trials and tribulations of its main character, Henry Reyna, a self-proclaimed 'zoot suiter' and his fictional conscience, El Pachuco. Other important characters include Henry's family: Enrique (father), Dolores (mother), Lupe (younger sister), and Rudy (younger brother); Henry's attorney and friend, George; Henry's love interest/friend/supporter, Alice; member's of the 38th St. Gang and their significant others: Smiley, Joey, Tommy, Elena, and Bertha; Henry's girlfriend, Della; members of the Downey Gang, the opposing foes of the 38th St. Gang; and various other legal and journalistic figures.
2. What is the intrusion that causes the stasis to be broken and the dramatic action to develop, often at an increasingly rapid pace, to the end of the play?
The intrusion of the play occurs when Henry and the 38th St. Gang are convicted of both first and second-degree murder at the end of the first act. If we define the intrusion as the moment that acts as the catalyst for the answering of the play's dramatic question, then this moment would serve as such a moment. Assuming that the dramatic question of the play is whether or not the Pachuco and Zoot Suit culture will continue to survive despite the constant attacks and belittlement of the white community, the conviction serves as the intrusion as it causes the dramatic action to begin to revolve around whether or not the 38th St. Gang and Henry, who were wrongfully convicted of murder, will be able to continue to live their lives and express their thoughts and beliefs without being under constant attack by the Caucasian community. This scene also causes the dramatic action to increase as the boys are sentenced to life in prison and the action and storylines of the other characters begin to increase as well. In addition, prior to this point in the story, no dramatic action has really taken place and the stasis, including the arrest and charges of murder against the men, has been drawn out.
3. Why do the events of the play take place at this particular time and place? In other words, what is the unique factor which is out of the ordinary that causes a turn of events to take place?
This is the day that Henry Reyna and the 38th St. Gang are arrested at a dance under the charges of a murder that has recently taken place at the Sleepy Lagoon. This play and the actions that occur also take place at this time due to the racial tensions and stereotypes that the Chicano and Mexican-American community were subjected to during the mid-20th Century and World War II. The zoot suit culture was particularly popular in the Los Angeles area where young men who wore the suits were singled out as mobsters, rebel rousers, thugs, and delinquents. Such facts and timeliness are important in denoting why the action occurs where and when it does.
4. State the dramatic questions that must be answered by the end of the play? (Ordinarily, the dramatic question shares a close connection with the intrustion.)
The dramatic question of Zoot Suit is: Will the zoot suit and Pachuco culture be able to survive despite the constant setbacks and attacks by the white community? this question is discussed in detail throughout the play as the characters are faced with various allegations and problematic situations including the wrongful imprisonment of the play's title character, the war efforts going on in Europe and Japan, the bias and propaganda published in the media, and various other constant attacks from the American and specifically, Los Angeles, community. The question is answered at the end of the play by the two alternate endings offered about how Henry Reyna's life turned out. The choice of Henry's children to become educated and to identify as Chicanos shows the survival and transformation of the Latino and Pachuco culture of play's setting.
5. Use Henry to answer the questions concerning character. Ball says, a character is revealed by what he/she does, ie. The dramatic actions that are taken. Examine what the character wants (NOTE: In Wedding Band the wants of Julia are in flux. They change as the play progresses). The wants of a character often encounter obstacles that get in the way of achieving those wants. Ball says there are 4 kinds of obstacles that frustrate the wants of a charcter. They are: a. Me against myself, b. Me against another individual, c. Me against society (that is law, social norms, etc.) and, d. Me against fate, the universe, natural forces, God or the gods. In answering these questions be sure to point to the particular obstacles that demonstrate these obstacles.
The conflict that Henry Reyna faces within himself is the conflict of his identity as a zoot suiter. Throughout the play, the character El Pachuco acts as Henry's conscience. Henry identifies with El Pachuco because he is the embodiment of the Pachuco and Zoot Suit culture of Los Angeles during the 1940s. Becuase of this, Henry asks El Pachuco about everything and believes every single word that El Pachuco says to Henry. However, as the play progresses, Henry's identity begins to be called into question through his incarceration, his relationship with Alice, and various other events that cause Henry to question his identity as a zoot suiter. This conflict comes to a head at the end of the story where El Pachuco and the rest of the cast offer various stories as to how Henry's life eventually ended up. Another minor conflict that Henry is subjected to is the conflict as to whether he should pursue a marriage with Della or a relationship with Allice. This conflict is never truly resolved. Other conflicts throughout the show are clearly the conflicts between the rival gangs, the 38th St. Gang led by Henry, and the Downey Gang. In addition, the external conflict that Henry suffers from society as he is racially profiled and wrongly convicted of a crime that he did not commit is another major plot point. Henry is constantly belittled and faces various forms of hate and discrimination based solely on the color of his skin and the clothes that he wears. Such a conflict ties into one of the main themes of the play, racial profiling.
6. The most important information in most plays takes place during theatrical moments. Identify the most theatrical moments in Zoot Suit. There are more than one.
The most theatrical moment of Zoot Suit is the scene of the zoot suit riots. This scene is one of the most theatrical and most important moments in the play. The theatricality is heightened due to the intense choreographed movement of the scene, the music, and the stripping of El Pachuco from his clothes. The movement of the scene, characterized by a dance that turns into an all-out brawl between the Hispanic men and Military men, adds an air of seriousness and artistical movement to the scene that adds to the overall theatricality and makes it one of the most put together and thought out scenes in the entire play. The verbal attacks committed by the press and the Marines also make the reader and audience uncomfortable due to the intensity and the hatred of the comments and the intent behind the comments. The underlying music of the scene, consisting of music from the jazz era, also adds a sort of comparison to the happy go lucky atmosphere of the dance as paralleled and compared to hatred spewed the white community toward the Pachucos. Finally, the physical stripping of El Pachuco to a simple a loincloth is by far the most theatrical moment of the scene as his clothes and his identity are practically stripped away from him by the white man. By combining all of these various techniques, the scene of the zoot suit riots is the most theatrical moment of the show.
7. Provide at least three examples of images in Zoot Suit. How does the title of the play help us understand the images in the play? (Remember Ball says that, “An image is the use of something we know that tells us something we don’t know.” He goes on to say that images invoke and expand, rather than define and limit.”)
One of the main images in the story is the zoot suit itself. The zoot suit serves as identifying trait, along with the haircut, of the Pachuco men in the play. This image serves particularly important during the riot scene in the second act where El Pachuco is literally stripped of his zoot suit by the white until he seen in just a loincloth. In this scene and throughout the play, the suit serves as a symbol for the Pachuco and Latino identity. During the scene where the zoot suit is literally ripped off of El Pachuco, the action acts as the men stripping the men and community of their identities in a humiliating and horrifically public manner.
Another symbol in Zoot Suit is the newspapers. The newspapers are an important symbol as they not only serve as the backdrop and curtain during the show, they are also used as set pieces and as props. The significance of the newspapers shows the how much bias, hate, and propaganda the media so readily and easily spread about the Latino community and the effect that it had on the consumers. Many of the readers believed everything that they read in the newspapers, and such a habit was one that led to the marginalization of an entire community of individuals within the Los Angeles community. The newspapers serving as set pieces shows how reliant the society was on the media and how powerful the media was, in turn insinuating how detrimental its effects were in the Latino community.
The final image in Zoot Suit is the image of the jail cells. The jail cells in the play are constructed originally by newspapers, and later on by shadows to represent the cells and bars. The jail cells themselves act as an image to show the imprisonment of the Latino community in America by the bias of the media and the racial profiling done by the white community. Such cells have trapped the Latino community into a stereotype and into boxes that are clearly mislabeled making the citizens, specifically Henry and the 38th St. gang fell inferior and unequal to their peers. Through this image, the playwright attempts to exploit the consensual feeling of many people in the Latino community during the time, the feeling of being lost and constricted.
8. Ordinarily, there are many themes in most plays. List the themes in Zoot Suit.
Themes discussed in the play Zoot Show include racial profiling and identity. The theme of identity is discussed and explored through the relationship between Henry and his alter ego, El Pachuco. El Pachuco a figment of Henry's imagination that basically helps connect Henry to his culture as a Chicano in Los Angeles during the time of the show. The fictional character is Henry's biggest tie to his identity. Therefore, he relies heavily on the input and advice of El Pachuco on how to interact with the Caucasian characters and his family. The work of El Pachuco and Henry's reliance on him as a focal point of his own identity is one of the large themes discussed in the play. The second very large theme discussed in the play includes the theme of racial profiling and all of the consequences of such an action. Racial profiling and the issues that such an event imposes on a community of marginalized individuals is a major topic of the play. The issues such as wrongful imprisonment, discrimination, and inequality are all issues that are accompanied with racial profiling and these issues are and themes are discussed throughout the play.
9. Most American plays have something to do with family and/or family relationships. What does family have to do with the dramatic action in Zoot Suit?
The play Zoot Suit redefines family as an essential part of the Chicano family. Henry and his family are extremely close-knit and despite him being gone and incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, he came home just as much loved and adored by his friends and family as he had never left. The play illustrates how close the bonds of the Chicano family and how important family is to the Latin culture as illustrated by Henry's parents' emphasis on him getting married to Della and raising a nice family. The play also redefines family as it relates to a more fraternal and brotherly passion. The relationship between Henry and the 38th St. Gang is a bond of brotherhood that cannot be broken. All of them have been through the wringer together, whether it has been rumbles with the Downey Gang or jail time based on crimes they did not commit. The relationship between the boys and the members of the gang is one of unparalled unity.
Copy and paste this worksheet as a separate page linked to the Homepage of your portfolio. DO NOT type your answers on THIS document because it needs to be used by other students. The title of your page which replies to these questions is linked to your portfolio and should begin with the first initials of your first and last name. (In my case, the link to this worksheet from my portfolio page would read frzootsuit.)
You may earn a maximum of 3 points toward your final grade by doing the above and answering the questions and submitting them ontime (no later than Friday, October 13). Any worksheets submitted after the deadline will get a 0.
You will be rewarded a maximum of 3 points if I judge your work to be above average. You will receive 2 points if your work is average, that is it may have a few minor mistakes in some of the answers but demonstrates correct grammar and indicates that some, but not all, of the answers, are acceptable and well expressed. You will earn only 1 point if you simply answered the questions and/or if you use poor grammar and if there are signs that you have not read the material on which your answers are based.
1. In the space below, describe the stasis at the beginning of Zoot Suit. In other words, “Where are we?” “When is it (time, day, and year)?” “Who are the people involved?” “What is the dramatic situation in which the characters find themselves as the play unfolds?”
Zoot Suit takes place in Los Angeles. The action takes place all throughout Los Angeles and the barrio or neighborhood of many of the Latinx community members living in Los Angeles during the middle part of the 20th century. The play takes place during World War II and the action begins on June 3, 1943, at the height of the zoot suit era, where Mexican American men would wear elongated suits as a part of the Pachuco culture of the time. The play begins at a dance that is shortly raided by police resulting in the arrest of the play's main character, Henry Reyna, and his gang, the 38th St. Gang. The play revolves around the trials and tribulations of its main character, Henry Reyna, a self-proclaimed 'zoot suiter' and his fictional conscience, El Pachuco. Other important characters include Henry's family: Enrique (father), Dolores (mother), Lupe (younger sister), and Rudy (younger brother); Henry's attorney and friend, George; Henry's love interest/friend/supporter, Alice; member's of the 38th St. Gang and their significant others: Smiley, Joey, Tommy, Elena, and Bertha; Henry's girlfriend, Della; members of the Downey Gang, the opposing foes of the 38th St. Gang; and various other legal and journalistic figures.
2. What is the intrusion that causes the stasis to be broken and the dramatic action to develop, often at an increasingly rapid pace, to the end of the play?
The intrusion of the play occurs when Henry and the 38th St. Gang are convicted of both first and second-degree murder at the end of the first act. If we define the intrusion as the moment that acts as the catalyst for the answering of the play's dramatic question, then this moment would serve as such a moment. Assuming that the dramatic question of the play is whether or not the Pachuco and Zoot Suit culture will continue to survive despite the constant attacks and belittlement of the white community, the conviction serves as the intrusion as it causes the dramatic action to begin to revolve around whether or not the 38th St. Gang and Henry, who were wrongfully convicted of murder, will be able to continue to live their lives and express their thoughts and beliefs without being under constant attack by the Caucasian community. This scene also causes the dramatic action to increase as the boys are sentenced to life in prison and the action and storylines of the other characters begin to increase as well. In addition, prior to this point in the story, no dramatic action has really taken place and the stasis, including the arrest and charges of murder against the men, has been drawn out.
3. Why do the events of the play take place at this particular time and place? In other words, what is the unique factor which is out of the ordinary that causes a turn of events to take place?
This is the day that Henry Reyna and the 38th St. Gang are arrested at a dance under the charges of a murder that has recently taken place at the Sleepy Lagoon. This play and the actions that occur also take place at this time due to the racial tensions and stereotypes that the Chicano and Mexican-American community were subjected to during the mid-20th Century and World War II. The zoot suit culture was particularly popular in the Los Angeles area where young men who wore the suits were singled out as mobsters, rebel rousers, thugs, and delinquents. Such facts and timeliness are important in denoting why the action occurs where and when it does.
4. State the dramatic questions that must be answered by the end of the play? (Ordinarily, the dramatic question shares a close connection with the intrustion.)
The dramatic question of Zoot Suit is: Will the zoot suit and Pachuco culture be able to survive despite the constant setbacks and attacks by the white community? this question is discussed in detail throughout the play as the characters are faced with various allegations and problematic situations including the wrongful imprisonment of the play's title character, the war efforts going on in Europe and Japan, the bias and propaganda published in the media, and various other constant attacks from the American and specifically, Los Angeles, community. The question is answered at the end of the play by the two alternate endings offered about how Henry Reyna's life turned out. The choice of Henry's children to become educated and to identify as Chicanos shows the survival and transformation of the Latino and Pachuco culture of play's setting.
5. Use Henry to answer the questions concerning character. Ball says, a character is revealed by what he/she does, ie. The dramatic actions that are taken. Examine what the character wants (NOTE: In Wedding Band the wants of Julia are in flux. They change as the play progresses). The wants of a character often encounter obstacles that get in the way of achieving those wants. Ball says there are 4 kinds of obstacles that frustrate the wants of a charcter. They are: a. Me against myself, b. Me against another individual, c. Me against society (that is law, social norms, etc.) and, d. Me against fate, the universe, natural forces, God or the gods. In answering these questions be sure to point to the particular obstacles that demonstrate these obstacles.
The conflict that Henry Reyna faces within himself is the conflict of his identity as a zoot suiter. Throughout the play, the character El Pachuco acts as Henry's conscience. Henry identifies with El Pachuco because he is the embodiment of the Pachuco and Zoot Suit culture of Los Angeles during the 1940s. Becuase of this, Henry asks El Pachuco about everything and believes every single word that El Pachuco says to Henry. However, as the play progresses, Henry's identity begins to be called into question through his incarceration, his relationship with Alice, and various other events that cause Henry to question his identity as a zoot suiter. This conflict comes to a head at the end of the story where El Pachuco and the rest of the cast offer various stories as to how Henry's life eventually ended up. Another minor conflict that Henry is subjected to is the conflict as to whether he should pursue a marriage with Della or a relationship with Allice. This conflict is never truly resolved. Other conflicts throughout the show are clearly the conflicts between the rival gangs, the 38th St. Gang led by Henry, and the Downey Gang. In addition, the external conflict that Henry suffers from society as he is racially profiled and wrongly convicted of a crime that he did not commit is another major plot point. Henry is constantly belittled and faces various forms of hate and discrimination based solely on the color of his skin and the clothes that he wears. Such a conflict ties into one of the main themes of the play, racial profiling.
6. The most important information in most plays takes place during theatrical moments. Identify the most theatrical moments in Zoot Suit. There are more than one.
The most theatrical moment of Zoot Suit is the scene of the zoot suit riots. This scene is one of the most theatrical and most important moments in the play. The theatricality is heightened due to the intense choreographed movement of the scene, the music, and the stripping of El Pachuco from his clothes. The movement of the scene, characterized by a dance that turns into an all-out brawl between the Hispanic men and Military men, adds an air of seriousness and artistical movement to the scene that adds to the overall theatricality and makes it one of the most put together and thought out scenes in the entire play. The verbal attacks committed by the press and the Marines also make the reader and audience uncomfortable due to the intensity and the hatred of the comments and the intent behind the comments. The underlying music of the scene, consisting of music from the jazz era, also adds a sort of comparison to the happy go lucky atmosphere of the dance as paralleled and compared to hatred spewed the white community toward the Pachucos. Finally, the physical stripping of El Pachuco to a simple a loincloth is by far the most theatrical moment of the scene as his clothes and his identity are practically stripped away from him by the white man. By combining all of these various techniques, the scene of the zoot suit riots is the most theatrical moment of the show.
7. Provide at least three examples of images in Zoot Suit. How does the title of the play help us understand the images in the play? (Remember Ball says that, “An image is the use of something we know that tells us something we don’t know.” He goes on to say that images invoke and expand, rather than define and limit.”)
One of the main images in the story is the zoot suit itself. The zoot suit serves as identifying trait, along with the haircut, of the Pachuco men in the play. This image serves particularly important during the riot scene in the second act where El Pachuco is literally stripped of his zoot suit by the white until he seen in just a loincloth. In this scene and throughout the play, the suit serves as a symbol for the Pachuco and Latino identity. During the scene where the zoot suit is literally ripped off of El Pachuco, the action acts as the men stripping the men and community of their identities in a humiliating and horrifically public manner.
Another symbol in Zoot Suit is the newspapers. The newspapers are an important symbol as they not only serve as the backdrop and curtain during the show, they are also used as set pieces and as props. The significance of the newspapers shows the how much bias, hate, and propaganda the media so readily and easily spread about the Latino community and the effect that it had on the consumers. Many of the readers believed everything that they read in the newspapers, and such a habit was one that led to the marginalization of an entire community of individuals within the Los Angeles community. The newspapers serving as set pieces shows how reliant the society was on the media and how powerful the media was, in turn insinuating how detrimental its effects were in the Latino community.
The final image in Zoot Suit is the image of the jail cells. The jail cells in the play are constructed originally by newspapers, and later on by shadows to represent the cells and bars. The jail cells themselves act as an image to show the imprisonment of the Latino community in America by the bias of the media and the racial profiling done by the white community. Such cells have trapped the Latino community into a stereotype and into boxes that are clearly mislabeled making the citizens, specifically Henry and the 38th St. gang fell inferior and unequal to their peers. Through this image, the playwright attempts to exploit the consensual feeling of many people in the Latino community during the time, the feeling of being lost and constricted.
8. Ordinarily, there are many themes in most plays. List the themes in Zoot Suit.
Themes discussed in the play Zoot Show include racial profiling and identity. The theme of identity is discussed and explored through the relationship between Henry and his alter ego, El Pachuco. El Pachuco a figment of Henry's imagination that basically helps connect Henry to his culture as a Chicano in Los Angeles during the time of the show. The fictional character is Henry's biggest tie to his identity. Therefore, he relies heavily on the input and advice of El Pachuco on how to interact with the Caucasian characters and his family. The work of El Pachuco and Henry's reliance on him as a focal point of his own identity is one of the large themes discussed in the play. The second very large theme discussed in the play includes the theme of racial profiling and all of the consequences of such an action. Racial profiling and the issues that such an event imposes on a community of marginalized individuals is a major topic of the play. The issues such as wrongful imprisonment, discrimination, and inequality are all issues that are accompanied with racial profiling and these issues are and themes are discussed throughout the play.
9. Most American plays have something to do with family and/or family relationships. What does family have to do with the dramatic action in Zoot Suit?
The play Zoot Suit redefines family as an essential part of the Chicano family. Henry and his family are extremely close-knit and despite him being gone and incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, he came home just as much loved and adored by his friends and family as he had never left. The play illustrates how close the bonds of the Chicano family and how important family is to the Latin culture as illustrated by Henry's parents' emphasis on him getting married to Della and raising a nice family. The play also redefines family as it relates to a more fraternal and brotherly passion. The relationship between Henry and the 38th St. Gang is a bond of brotherhood that cannot be broken. All of them have been through the wringer together, whether it has been rumbles with the Downey Gang or jail time based on crimes they did not commit. The relationship between the boys and the members of the gang is one of unparalled unity.